The Los Angeles Clippers had one of the busier offseasons in the NBA, swapping Norman Powell for John Collins and signing Bradley Beal, Chris Paul, and Brook Lopez.
Pending the investigation into Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers should be one of the better teams in the West this season, despite their aging roster.
Beal spent last season as the laughingstock of the NBA as he and the Phoenix Suns floundered, although he managed to average 17 points on efficient scoring, especially from deep.
This season, the Clippers think they can maximize him and get him back to playing at an All-Star level thanks to one simple thing that the Suns didn’t have.
GettyPhoenix Suns forward Bradley Beal stands at midcourt.
Clippers Have No Shortage At Point Guard
In Beal’s two seasons with the Suns, Devin Booker led the team in assists. Booker is a solid facilitator, to be sure, although he is definitely a shooting guard and shouldn’t be tasked with being the lead playmaker.
Between Paul, James Harden, and even Kris Dunn, the Clippers have true point guards on the roster, and Beal’s new teammates are expecting him to take advantage of that.
“I think that’s going to make life so much easier for him,” explained Ivica Zubac to ClutchPoints’ Tomer Azarly on September 22nd. We saw when he played for the Wizards, playing with the real point guard in John Wall, and then later with Russell Westbrook, he’s a scoring machine. He can get you 30 points a night, so I think the fit with us is going to be much better, and that’s going to make life much easier for him.”
During Beal’s last All-Star season with the Washington Wizards in 2021, Westbrook led the league with 11.7 assists per game, and Beal finished second in scoring. That may have been four years ago, although at only 32 years old, the Clippers are hoping Beal can return to that level.
Bradley Beal Should Thrive on Clippers
Of course, Zubac is going to be an optimist. That said, the Clippers were a 50-win team last season that only got better. They replaced Powell’s scoring with Beal, a more proven veteran, and bolstered their bench with Paul and Lopez, still two high-level defenders.
Assuming Leonard remains on the court this season, the Clippers won’t have to rely on Beal to defend at a high level, and they won’t have to rely on Leonard to lead them in scoring. Harden, one of the best playmakers of his generation, will still have Zubac to run the pick-and-roll with and will have a shot creator in Beal to bail him out as needed.
After the Clippers added Paul and became the oldest team in the league, jokes took the internet by storm about the “retirement home” at Intuit Dome, although with the Houston Rockets already dealing with injuries, the Clippers might be able to sneak off with home court advanatge in the first round of the playoffs and finally find the postseason success that has eluded them since their relocation in 1984.
LA Clippers Have Simple Tool to Maximize Bradley Beal, Suns Never Had It